That Reminds Me

by Derek Owusu

This is the story of K.

K is sent into care before a year marks his birth. He grows up in fields and woods, and he is happy, he thinks. When K is eleven, the city reclaims him. He returns to an unknown mother and a part-time father, trading the fields for flats and a community that is alien to him. Slowly, he finds friends. Eventually, he finds love. He learns how to navigate the city. But as he grows, he begins to realise that he needs more than the city can provide. He is a man made of pieces. Pieces that are slowly breaking apart.

That Reminds Me is the story of one young man, from birth to adulthood, told in fragments of memory. It explores questions of identity, belonging, addiction, sexuality, violence, family and religion. It is a deeply moving and completely original work of literature from one of the brightest British writers of today.

Genres: Fiction, Poetry, Literary Fiction, Mental Health, Short Stories, Audiobook, British Literature

128 pages, Hardcover

First published November 14, 2019

About the author

Derek Owusu is an award-winning writer and poet from North London.

He has written for the BBC, ITV, Granta, Esquire, GQ and Tate Britain.

In 2019, Owusu collated, edited and contributed to SAFE: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space, an anthology exploring the experiences of Black men in Britain.

His first novel, That Reminds Me, and the first work of fiction to be published by Stormzy’s Merky Books imprint, won the Desmond Elliott Prize for best debut novel published in the UK and Ireland.

His second novel, Losing the Plot, was published in 2022 and was Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and Jhalak Prize.

In 2023 he was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.

His third novel, Borderline Fiction, will be published by Canongate in 2025

Reviews

[Marchpane · Rating 4 out of 5]

That Reminds Me is raw, unflinching, poetic, and unlike anything I’ve read before. A very quick read, I opened this up just to get a sense of it, and found myself racing through to the end in one sitting.

A young British-Ghanaian man, K, relates the events of his life to Anansi, the African god of stories. The story begins with K being sent into foster care as a baby, later returning to his family in the city, struggling to fit in at school, growing up and finding out who he is. K’s cultural soup is a mix of West African tradition, Christian gospel church, Eddie Murphy movies, and grime music, among other things.

The style is a fragmented and frenetic, often disorienting, whirlwind. Events speed past before the reader can find something to grip onto: the birth of a brother; fleeting glimpses of an absentee dad; early sexual experiences; the London riots. Each fragment of memory eddies and bleeds into the next. The ARC I read had no page breaks—I don’t know if this will be the format of the final printed book, but it added to the feeling of a story delivered in a breathless rush.

The last third of the book relates a harrowing experience of mental illness—including descriptions of self harm—as K becomes suicidal and is institutionalised, dealing not only with his illness (Borderline Personality Disorder) but also the associated stigma and isolation.

So this is some fairly dark autofiction, and the fragmented structure can make it difficult to parse, but the language really lifts it—the rhythms and cadences, the way it slips occasionally into rhyme—and it almost needs to be read aloud to be fully appreciated. That Reminds Me is an unusual, deeply personal prose poem. 4 stars.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now winner of the 2020 Desmond Elliott Prize for debut fiction - and for me the real find of 2020: almost the first book I read of the year.

I don’t wear my scars, they wear me; wear me down, wear me out, coerce me into increasing their number until they’ve won the war. Sometimes, I think I may just let them.

I wanted to live again. As they gathered, I felt the pressure of each tear awake to its own trickling sand weighing down the dirt on my grave.

A simultaneously searing and experimental debut novel by a writer using his poetry skills, and his own experiences, to convey the life of the first party narrator (“K”), suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder and looking back across his life. The book is the first published by Stormzy’s new imprint Merky Books (part of the Penguin Random House conglomerate).

The book is almost the opposite of an easy read, in two respects.

Firstly its style – the book is written in a series of 80+ short verses, told in a mixture of present and past tense, each representing a fragmentary and impressionistic memory, necessarily distorted through the acts of remembering and forgetting. These can on a first and even second read (on finishing the book I went back and immediately read it a second time) seem jumbled and confusing, but they accumulate to a picture of K: who he is, what he has become, what he believes about himself and the formative experiences and traumas that have lead to that position.

At times I felt that the book was Sebald-esque without the grainy black and white photos and the author has, interestingly, said

I wanted each verse to feel like a snapshot, a Polaroid on paper because that's how I see memories. You don't know what happened directly before or after the photo was taken unless they’re photographed too …….. And with recalling memories and describing them, we usually leave out the bit before and the bit after unless we feel they are equally as important. Often, we tend to think certain memories are random and useless. We say to ourselves, why do I remember the most irrelevant things? But I think any memory that can be recalled, has meaning and is significant to who you currently are. That's why some of my fragments may seem like random descriptions of actions, but they are meaningful to who K is by the end of the book.

The second is the unflinching gaze which the book places on difficult subjects – K’s descent into alcoholism, self-harm and suicidal thoughts and action. In particular, the book has its greatest intensity and clarity of emotion when K is describing his acts of cutting.

K, born to Ghanaian parents in London, is, from an early age placed, via a private fostering arrangement, into the care of foster parents in the Suffolk countryside, while his parents develop their life in London.

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In many ways he has an idyllic and settled life in the countryside, but he is still adrift both from his family and despite he best attempts and the support of his foster mother, from his culture (we get hints of difficulties both with his hair and his health as well as to relate to a different culture)

Thin lips beneath a film of moisture, my foster mother trying to teach me how to pronounce letters of the alphabet. We flip through Biff and Chip, me waiting for parts with Wilma.

As well as experiencing his earliest struggles with communication and with a sense of self-worth:

Cursive presents as the RP of pen to paper; I envy that dexterity denied me, the first difference of ability I noticed between myself and others. My foster mum finds pages of failed attempts, notes of a voice failing speech therapy, pain, straining imprinting on paper. She forces me to look at my writing, pointing at sentence after sentence, her finger finally resting on a tear absorbed, covering my shame, and then tells me my handwriting is lovely without the fancy lines.

When, confusingly to the seven-year old, his foster mother succumbs to the lung cancer (a particularly moving verse conveys how they two develop a deep bond as her health deteriorates – something K sees more as an excuse to spend time alone with her), he is returned to inner-City London (Tottenham) to live with an aunt – having after seven year of his life already experienced trauma, loss and displacement, the long term impacts of which will then play out over his life.

In London, he also starts to explore more of his Ghanian roots as well as what it means to be part of a shared emigrant culture with other youths and a wider family. The framing device for the verses is that they are told to Anansi (the spider god of stories) – further I think representing the older K’s approach to trying to understand who he is and what has happened to him, through the lens of his cultural heritage.

Nyame, I’m weak from calling you, from raising my voice with no rumble from the sky. I have starved, given away my stories with nothing but memories in return, a life hidden until I could show you my suffering. But my life means nothing to you, so I take my history and rise from the Golden Stool. Dua kontonkyikuronkyi na ema yehunu odwomfo.

We see a world of poverty, of pirated videos, evangelical religion, a developing Grime scene, knife-crime, inner-city riots.

While K himself experiences sexual exploration, paternalistic neglect and physical abuse at the same time proudly bringing up a younger brother.

“Yes, I’ve never stood above a grave but I have witnessed the birth of children”

And then as the impact of his earlier life bleeds through (literally) into his adult life, we see the painfully chronicled descent of his mental health and its physical impact.

I would not be surprised to see this novel featuring later in the year on (at least) the Booker longlist. One interesting aspect of the book is the use of experimentation to convey black male experience, something I think is unusual (the author himself has said “Writers of colour aren’t really given the space to be experimental.”) and may also mark this book as a strong contender for the Goldsmith.

After a late-night library trip I’d call her and say, ‘Look at the moon.’ Black boys rarely speak on the poet’s muse so these twilight tropes seemed original – the moon is glowing new when seen through eyes deprived of cliché.

[Emily B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an impactful and brave read, particularly the parts about mental health which really stood out to me. I loved the honest and raw storytelling and will be looking out for more of his work.

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2020
This novella is all about its lyrically shattered, poetic language: If Derek Owusu had decided to choose another typographical presentation of his sentences, this would easily pass as a collection of prose poems. Our protagonist is simply called K, reminiscent of Franz Kafka's parable-style naming technique - in The Trial, the main character is famously named Josef K., and "That Reminds Me" does share some themes with Kafka's text, e.g. helplessness, futility, disorientation, and a failing bureaucracy. By re-assembling shattered memories into five distinct sections, Owusu's K makes his own case before the reader and himself, trying to convey his story and to make sense of his own identity from broken-up pieces. At the beginning of every section, K (who is Black) addresses Anansi, the African trickster and storyteller who defies traditional eurocentric conventions of wisdom and narration, or, at the end, Anansi's father Nyame.

As the title already suggests, the narrative does play with associations - this text has a jazz vibe to it, but the urgent, intense kind. K has stayed in a foster family before moving back to his parents in London. Living in poverty with a hardworking mother, a largely absent, violent father and (later) a troubled younger brother, K tries to come to terms with his sexuality, mental illness, addiction, and the world that surrounds him. Mental and physical pain are inflicted upon him, and he inflicts pain upon himself. Owusu does an excellent job capturing the confusion and pressure that K endures and passes it on to the reader in disturbing, raw prose. To get an impression of the language, you can check out Owusu himself reciting some lines here.

The novella seems to be semi-autobiographical, as Owusu, like K, is of Ghanaian heritage, was raised by a white foster family for some time, and was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The book was published by #Merky, an imprint within William Heinemann curated by grime rapper Stormzy - and it's certainly interesting to read this book in the context of grime music or even GRM: Brainfuck.

Fragmented and challenging, this surely is a great poetic achievement, and my criticism is highly individual: I personally did not really click with the writing, it felt too stylized for me and did not draw me in. To be fair, this needs to be judged as poetry, not literary fiction, and I am the kind of person who usually struggles with such long poems - which is not Owusu's fault. So objectively, this is a very strong book, but it's not my kind of book.

[Katia N · Rating 5 out of 5]

The pieces of this fragmentary novel are like shards of glass - sharp, transparent and uneven. A fragmentary structure seems to be the high fashion in the anglophone world. But for a debut, this stands out. I needed to read each piece at least twice to understand it. Quite often, he starts with prose and ends up with a verse. There is a rawness in his text and there is freedom. He does not try to impress, to imitate or to be liked. I hope he would grow from this one to something even bigger.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because it has attracted so much attention from other reviewers whose views I respect, many of whom have tipped it for a Booker nomination. It is a powerful and personal book, a series of poetic snapshots which tell a disjointed story of a young man's life and his struggles with being separated from his mother and mental illness leading to self harm.

It is short (not least because of the amount of white space) but intense - I found the text a little hard to follow at times (my ear for poetry is notoriously bad, and although this is formatted as prose, much of it reads quite like poetry), so I don't feel I am well qualified to review it, but what I did follow was very moving.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now deservedly winner of the 2020 Desmond Elliott Prize, for the most outstanding first novels of the past 12 months

Lose a memory and you’ve lost a life – so hands stretch into the darkness to bring our living thoughts to the light. Shaking the limbic like a Polaroid until the image is clear, I stare at the face I think I remember, confused as to why you’re not here. If I forgive your absence, then you have to forgive mine, forgive me for not showing up and for struggling to keep you alive. And though we’re not in contact, you’ll always be my mother; we’ll meet again because we never said goodbye.

Perhaps 2018's most exciting new literary voice was Michael Donkor's exploration of British-Ghanian life, Hold an opinion echoed in the Big Issue by Derek Owusu:

Michael Donkor is the freshest new voice in Black British literature, and Hold crosses borders and brings Ghanaian culture to life in Britain.

So having read Donkor's wonderful review in The Guardian of Owusu's debut from the new Penguin Random House imprint #Merky Books curated by Stormzy - "a singular achievement ... a palpable charge and welcome freshness to the voice" I was delighted to get an ARC via Netgalley.

The first-person narrator K of That Reminds Me is, British-born but of Ghanian origin, and, like the author, was privately fostered as a child to a white family in the countyside, before returning to his mother in London in aged 7. His account of his time in foster care is affectionate, but tinged with a retrospective realisation of the trauma involved, both in terms of displacement from biological family but also from culture.

Thin lips beneath a film of moisture, my foster mother trying to teach me how to pronounce letters of the alphabet. We flip through Biff and Chip, me waiting for parts with Wilma.

In an interview with Dazed Owusu explains

When I researched childhood, I read that the first seven years are crucial and everything that happens after that is consequence. So, the book had to cover the first seven years. I haven’t written those first seven years of K’s life as trauma, but it is trauma. Being taken away from his real mum, put in a completely different culture, and then later returning to London – that’s two types of trauma, and that’s what I try to convey.

I wanted to pay respect to my foster mum, but I also wanted to highlight certain things about foster care, particularly if a white family is fostering a black child. They need to know how to take care of their hair, their skin, and how some diseases are more likely to affect a black child.

In his anthology of essays Safe: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space Owusu , in his own contribution, recounted:

I had no idea that I was black. My foster mum was white, she was older, and she was my mum and I didn’t question any difference between us.

The first time I did, was when I was watching The A-Team, and I saw Mr T as B. A. Baracus. I saw his mohawk. I knew I could do that to my hair, but then I thought about my friends and realised they couldn’t do that to their hair. That was the first time I realised there is something different about me.

All of this is covered in the first 10 pages of the book. K's story, which comprises just 100 pages, goes on to cover, inter alia, his return to London, his relationship with his mother, his coming-of-age and love life, his delayed discovery of his Anglo-Ghanian cultural heritage, but also male mental health (both K and the author have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder) and self-harm.

The story is told in a distinctive style - perhaps the closest approximation visually Han Kang's 흰 (translated as The White Book by Deborah Smith) - with snapshots of memory in the form of prose poetry, often taking up less than a full page. Owusu has explained the origins of the novel in an article in The Guardian:

I started writing fragments of memory and initially it was going to be a poetry collection, and then it turned into something different.

and in the Dazed interview he went on to explain the style he ended up adopting:

Q: I wanted to pick up on the point that it’s written in a fragmented, disjointed style – is this meant to mimic memories?

Derek Owusu: Yes, the book was deliberately written that way. Often, I repeat two of the same memories to give the feeling of remembering over and over again and distorting the memory. I wanted each verse to feel like a snapshot, a Polaroid on paper because that's how I see memories. You don't know what happened directly before or after the photo was taken unless they’re photographed too.

And with recalling memories and describing them, we usually leave out the bit before and the bit after unless we feel they are equally as important. Often, we tend to think certain memories are random and useless. We say to ourselves, why do I remember the most irrelevant things? But I think any memory that can be recalled, has meaning and is significant to who you currently are. That's why some of my fragments may seem like random descriptions of actions, but they are meaningful to who K is by the end of the book.

The effect is that what is only a 100 page novel, with blank pages and plenty of space, covers a wide scope of K's life and makes for a highly meditative read - the 100 pages took me longer than the two previous 300-400 page novels - and one where the prose demands to be re-read and contemplated.

Just one example, of a complete chapter/prose-poem:

I’m watching the day through a breeze-blown slice in my curtains, obscuring nothing but my hour, summer and wind making peace, moving the leaves in the trees standing guard by my window, nervous after my attempts, the sun stroking fronds but leaving others in shadows, seeing the movement of the branches but hearing nothing but the serene sound of cars beyond the garden, limbs waving to me as a bird perches, maybe scouting for a house, onto the bough scratching the glass, knocking to bring me out into contentment while tiny flies shoot in and out of view, their quick existence something I could argue as I smell the fresh air through the dour scent of a depression that hasn’t left my room in days, then swiftly feeling like I’m outside, alive and welcoming the wind to raise the hairs on my arms, a contrast that blossoms into hope.

Impressive - 4.5 stars rounded to 5 as this is a voice that needs to be heard.

[Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

It isn’t often (in fact, it may never have happened before) that the first thing I do on finishing a book is turn back to page 1 and read it again.

That said, this is not an easy book to read. Firstly, there is the subject matter which is dark. I would be careful about who I recommended this book to because especially the second half contains a lot of discussion of alcoholism, self-harm and even suicide. The self-harm sections are especially difficult to read.

Secondly, the structure of the novel is unusual and it isn’t always easy to follow the narrative, if narrative is even the right word to use. What we read is a series of snapshots written in a prose-poetry style. These work by impression rather than detail so the reader’s experience of the book is of a whole series of impressionistic images gradually building together to tell a story. Some of these snapshots are emotional memories, some are violent scenes, some are people sitting on a sofa watching a movie - there is a whole variety of images, like a slideshow that runs across the reader’s mind’s eye creating an overall story. I found I was thinking in terms of movie stills rather than photographs for the image that each short section creates because it does feel like there is an underlying story that is always on the move and we are dropping in at various points (not necessarily in chronological order).

Our narrator is K who tells us his life story. K suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) which Wikipedia defines as “a mental illness characterised by a long-term pattern of unstable relationships, a distorted sense of self, and strong emotional reactions. There is often self-harm and other dangerous behaviour.”

This definition also serves as a reasonable summary of the book. We start in K’s very early life and follow his childhood and early adulthood. In sections entitled Awareness, Reflection, Change Construction and Acceptance, we watch his life develop and gradually disintegrate. There is a lovely balance to the book as the sections are almost symmetrical in length with Change in the centre as the longest and the others being very similar in length to their counterpart on the other side of this central section. I don’t know if this is deliberate on the part of the author, but it gives the feeling of being brought into the heart of something, staying there for a while and then gradually withdrawing, and I found that very effective.

This is a book that deserves to be read slowly, carefully and more than once. It is also, quite possibly, a book that should be read aloud although I didn’t do that myself. I did read parts of it out loud to myself when it was just me in the house. I am a great fan of books that work by impression rather than detail and this one ticks that box in a big way. It is sad, it is difficult to read, but it is definitely worth the effort.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via NetGalley.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dazzling technique makes this book stunning on the style level as Owusu weaves between poetry and prose, using assonance, rhythm, cadence and rhyme with a masterful ease that feels natural and inevitable at the same time as it oozes a kind of spontaneity and authenticity.

It's extremely hard to pull off this kind of poetic prose and I've personally found it try-hard and often meaningless when used by Daisy Johnson, Jessica Andrews, Emma Glass amongst others - which makes it all the more impressive to see it done so beautifully in what is a first novel. This intuitive feeling for the flexibility, pliancy and resonance of language is rare and thrilling when it is made to work as is the case here. Owusu is as much a musician of words as a writer and it's well worth reading this aloud or listening to the audiobook (beautifully and feelingly read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith).

Of course, words alone don't necessarily make a strong book but Owusu has something to say as well: about loneliness and race, about masculinity and identity, about self-harm and addiction, about suicide and mental illness - and how to find a way out of that spiral towards regeneration and some kind of faith beyond despair.

It's especially positive to see this book challenging our cultural myths about Black masculinity as this embraces vulnerability and defencelessness with grace and integrity. In that sense, this reminded me of the intimacy of Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, with the linguistic facility of Kei Miller.

At just 100 pages or so with plenty of white space, this proves that so much can be said not necessarily with lots of words but with precisely the right words placed faultlessly.

(Many thanks to Merky Books/Penguin Random House Audio for an audiobook which enhanced my reading of this.)

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really beautiful stuff. Beautiful, but painful. There are already some excellent and detailed reviews on here, and I am sure many more will come as word spreads, so not much more from me other than to say this comes highly recommended. An important work, and one you all should read.

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

That Reminds Me is critically acclaimed poet Derek Owasu's debut novel in verse and boy is it incredibly hard-hitting, powerful and thought-provoking. It is by no means a comfortable read as it explores many of today's prevalent topics with unflinching honesty and gutsiness I am so glad I encountered; Owusu is a raw and real talent and the type that emerges merely once in a blue moon. It tells the story of K, a young, British-Ghanaian as he relays his life experiences from birth through to adulthood to Anansi, the West African god of stories. He discusses his time in foster care, feeling like an outsider in his school days, his first sexual encounters and his turbulent search for identity, and I must say that I was thoroughly absorbed; much more than I had initially expected knowing of the heavy issues he addresses right from first page through to last.

Towards the end of the book it begins to talk about the despair felt due to mental illness; the devastation it can cause to both the lives of sufferers and their family and friends. It references his mother's intense struggles and his ongoing battle to deal with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and the self-harm, depression, suicidal thoughts and institutionalisation that often accompanied it. He goes further by depicting the stigmatisation and resulting isolation of sufferers to which I found myself fighting back tears; all are treated with the utmost compassion and understanding. These extensive, detailed mental health woes very much come across as either superbly researched or as first-hand accounts; purely because of the amount of emotion and way everything was described, e.g. in such a stark yet compassionate manner, I would plump for the latter.

Despite its brevity (it runs to a mere 100 pages), this has to be one of the most grounding and profoundly moving books I have ever read. It's at once devastating and heartfelt; simultaneously despairing yet hopeful. This isn't a book you enjoy in the usual sense of the word as it can be quite harrowing, but nevertheless, it is one you drink in and process and one that will change your outlook and mindset. A truly phenomenal piece of writing and a special coming of age tale unlike those that have gone before. It charts the immense challenges a single soul can be faced with as they attempt to grow and fit-in in a chaotic and ever-changing world. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Merky Books for an ARC.

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked most about this book was the intensity. The short paragraphs of scene and action. Few sections longer than a page, most shorter, drawing you into a scene, a place, a personality, and holding you there until you start to feel what the characters feel.
It is an uncomfortable, troubled journey. Painful and poetic at the same time. Race and loneliness. The discomfort of the outsider. This is the story of K, a British-Ghanaian boy surrounded by difficulties to overcome, and not succeeding. There are beatings from the father, there is self harm and there is alcoholism, all of which are painted like a fine canvass, the details plain to see, the roughness and pain out in the open.
For me this was a book the turned increasingly painful to read, the spiral downwards pulling you along. What made it bearable were the sudden burst of lyricism. For example, this scene on a party boat on the Thames:

Now I am leaning over the sea, watching its foaming, soapy so fish stay fresh, reflecting the corner of the sky where the moon is bubble-wrapped in darkness to protect it from poets.

And another where the voice of the student poet comes through from the painful descent:

After a late –night library trip. I’d call her and say, ‘Look at the moon.’ Black boys rarely speak on the poet’s muse so these twilight tropes seemed original – the moon is glowing new when seen through eyes deprived of cliché.

In the last forty pages, the last third of the book we slip into self-harm and alcohol, and everything is raw but also exceptionally phrased:

Lunch over, I sit at my desk and stare at what my GP described as ‘the OCD-like neatness’ of my cuts, some still warn as wounds, not there yet but on their way to scars. I squeeze them, measure them, run my finger over the callused ones, too wide so glued back together, too late for stitches; the doctor says the BioGlue helps reduce scarring. I’ve never been back. They scream attention in summer, so stunna shades with tints create a barrier between myself and assumptions. I’m told they’re beautiful, described as battle scars or assumed to be tribal marks by awed onlookers unable to detangle their thinking from two-dimensional tropes.

The structure of the book is helped by a simple drawing of a spider making a new web at the start of each new part. There are five of these main sections, named Awareness (with 10 numbered ‘chapters’), Reflection (17), Change (28), Construction (17) and Acceptance (15). Occasionally we laugh with the narrator, but mostly we fall into his uncomfortable world, even join one of his work parties to make our discomfort complete. My final example from this fine work is a whole chapter from among the powerful pages of Construction:

It wasn’t the demands of time that told me therapy was over, it was the gestures of arms exasperated by my self-loathing. “Who taught you to help yourself, K?’, was said with a tremor like the slow and contained eddies on an unsettled river. I didn’t know the answer but I knew I could never see her again. I left her therapy shack – a shed converted so a retiree could spend the last years of her life helping others live their – unlocked my phone and deleted her number. The small amount of emotion in her voice was loud enough to scare me away, ear suddenly raised like those of suspicious prey. I couldn’t burden my therapist or know I had the power to – so, therapist, I unburden you; yours was a shoulder that was supposed to stay dry. There are some people that you shouldn’t see cry.

This is the intensity and power of the book – words so simple, nothing complex – but brimming with emotion, observation and control. This is a brilliant book. And did I mention that it is a debut novel? Where did that control come from, it is astonishing?

[Eric Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many debut novels take the form of coming-of-age tales, but Derek Owusu uses a beautifully unique style to tell a story that is wholly his own. “That Reminds Me” is a novel about K, a boy whose youth is spent between his mother and adoptive parents. He's physically and mentally abused. Money is tight but no one likes to admit this: “nobody left our home without a story of relative poverty to relay – the truth is, we were all black working class, but pretending we couldn't relate.” He is harassed about his skin colour and heritage: “I'm told my breath smells like an African.” Though K grows to discover friends, love and a passion for literature his early traumatic experiences eventually contribute to a deterioration of his mental health and a desire for self-destruction. His early life is related through a series of short poetically-charged chapters which play off from the folkloric trickster Anansi. The result reminded me somewhat of Sylvia Plath's “The Bell Jar” in how a young life that is disrupted by mental illness can be shattered into fragments and only be told in pieces.

Read my full review of That Reminds Me by Derek Owusu on LonesomeReader

[Beatrix · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I don't wear my scars, they wear me; wear me down, wear me out, coerce me into increasing their number until they've won the war. Sometimes, I think I may just let them."

In 'That reminds me' volgen we het leven van K van zijn kindertijd tot in zijn vroege volwassenheid. Hij vertelt hoe hij als baby werd overgeleverd aan pleegzorg, hoe hij later toch weer terugkwam bij zijn familie en zijn worsteling om erbij te mogen horen, zowel in zijn nieuwe familie, als op school waar hij een van de weinige zwarte kinderen is. En voor hij het weet staat hij aan de rand van volwassenheid, en wat dan? Hoe vind je je plek op de wereld en je eigen identiteit wanneer je vooral weet dat je niet mag en wilt zijn? Waar begin je als gebroken man met helen, en is er een moment waarop je te gebroken bent om opnieuw te beginnen?

'That reminds me' wordt verteld in korte vignettes waarmee het geheel leest als flarden van herinneringen. Pijnlijk, rauw en gedesoriënteerd, zoals herinneringen die je liever vergeet soms kunnen zijn. De taal maakt het verhaal, ritmisch, poëtisch en rakend in al zijn eenvoud.

Dit boek heb ik opgepakt zonder er ooit van gehoord te hebben, en ik ben er zo van onder de indruk dat ik nog steeds niet de juiste woorden kan vinden om onder woorden te brengen hoeveel het boek mij heeft geraakt. Het enige wat ik weet is dat ik zo graag zou willen dat meerdere mensen dit zouden lezen.❤

'That reminds me' is een hartverscheurend verhaal vol kwetsbaarheid over familie, identiteit, wanhoop, seksualiteit, ras en mental health, en nu al één van mijn favoriete boeken van dit jaar!

PS: Ik geef niet snel trigger warnings, maar in dit boek zitten enkele grafische scènes met zelfbeschadiging die ik wel een trigger warning waard vind, dus take care als je daar gevoelig voor bent. 😘

[But_i_thought_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do love a good mental workout, but felt the author kept me at an arm’s length.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Derek Owusu’s That Reminds Me is almost the shadow of it’s own story, running alongside the narrative, trying to explain what it can divine of itself as a fully fleshed Black child growing up in an abusive white foster home where he is forced to build bonds and left with nowhere else to give his love, who eventually returns home to his own family, and grows into all of the pain and attachment issues that shape his identity and his mental health. The most beautiful thing about this story is the incredible love K feels for his younger brother, and how he knows how to do that so perfectly, even though the love in his own life has been so fractured and incomplete. The biggest challenge in reading this, perhaps, was picking my way through a cacophony of words that evoke disorder more than sense, leaving the reader to piece together what is happening in the mind of someone not entirely themselves in their pain and longing. This book was a difficult and unresolved read that surely holds a mirror up to the unresolvable difficulty of being a child that is not given what every child deserves to grown into a healthy and loved adult, and rather, is left to stumble through substance misuse, loneliness, and deep sadness in a world that maybe can never feel entirely safe. A book that stands alone in it’s language and it’s approach to characterizing trauma and what arises in it’s wake, I’ll have to dream about this book a few times, and reread it once or twice as well.

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read this year so far. The hype was definitely not unwarranted. Cannot wait to read more of Owusu. RTC.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a masterpiece, a brilliant and lyrical work of art.

With the rhythm and flow of poetry, or song, Owusu builds the life of K, a black boy sent into care with a family in the countryside, before returning to his family in the city aged 11. These are the fragile foundations for a life and a mind that will unravel in the most horrible and distressing of ways as he grows into a man.

The writing is beautiful and the structure - a series of fragments, as much poems as they are prose - elevates the narrative to a level that feels fresh and lends enormous weight to his words. Beautiful.

[John Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Derek Owusu's That Reminds me is superb. Crafted with a poetic deftness and intensity that's deeply moving. I'm surprised this one didn't make it to The Goldsmiths prize list this year. It's certainly among my favourite reads of the year.

What immediately struck me, even a few pages in, is the share magnificence of poetic language and imagery. Written in short fragments that carry in a liminal way the experiences, feelings, perspectives, memories of the central voice, "K", a child and young man from British-Ghanaian heritage growing up in the UK and struggling with painful issues of identity or perhaps more significantly identities: family, belonging, sexuality, class, race, guilt and forgiveness, and so much more. There are difficult and challenging themes in these pages dealing with mental health, self-harm, alcohol abuse, childhood abandonment. The poetic fragments (remembered incidents, experiences, reflections from the life of K) work so well to set up fascinating resonances among the themes. One of these includes that K is telling his story to Anansi, the African god of stories, which generates for me at least a kind of mythic layer or depth between the sections, as well as Ghanian cultural roots and heritage.

When I say poetic, it's a language that can sear and cut and yet has a shimmering delicacy:

"I don’t wear my scars, they wear me; wear me down, wear me out, coerce me into increasing their number until they’ve won the war. Sometimes, I think I may just let them.

I wanted to live again. As they gathered, I felt the pressure of each tear awake to its own trickling sand weighing down the dirt on my grave."

"It sounds like an air ambulance descending to lift him to safety, but opening his eyes he sees the wheels of a skateboard stuttering along, dipping into thin gaps in the pavement. The police arrive to watch his watery eyes glitter like an ocean shining off a star, his closing statement, the suspect bleeding to death outside the open-till-late off-licence. Police seal off the road as the shopkeeper walks back into the light of his livelihood, shaking his head like he can tolerate only a few more deaths before he hands the shop over to his son, the son who now changes his clothes and wraps something in his T-shirt".

Just wow. There's so much going on in this passage: images of water, death, blood, inheritance and all of these are picked up and explored in so many other at times elliptical passages.

It's this elliptical quality that I adore as it creates a generous, inviting, empathetic space for the reader to encounter K and work through what that means for them. The intermingling of time and memory (fragments shifting between present and past and all shaped by memory) is just brilliant. I'm still contemplating this and likely will for some time. I think this is one of those special books that will stay with me. It rewards a patient, attentive reader prepared to give this book the time it deserves.

Here's another passage that displays so well this book's qualities:

"She trusted me to keep her alive, to deify, to render her an immortal that cancer couldn't metastasise. Thousands of stacked monitors going out one by one, a memory on each and then darkness to close the scene. Most of our loves die lying - dropping out of time, leaving broken promises behind. Mum, I thought you wanted to stay. But instead, when I turn back, I see, you were like me but you did it by smoking twenty a day. Why choose to die? I could have saved you, with my towel safety-pinned around my neck, a Boy Wonder wondering how to defeat the evil smoke monster rising to the ceiling. Lose a memory and you've lost a life - so hands stretch into the darkness to bring our living thoughts to the light. Shaking the limbic like a Polaroid until the image is clear. I stare at the face I think I remember, confused as to why you're not here. If I forgive your absence, then you have to forgive mine, forgive me for not showing up and for struggling to keep you alive. And though we're not in contact, you'll always be my mother; we'll meet again because we never said goodbye"

When I got to the last page, I turned back to the first page and started again. Do yourself a favour and get your hands on this one: that is if you're comfortable with experimental fiction, written with poetic power and that will discomfort you. I look forward to seeing what Derek Owusu writes next. Such an important voice.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A raw and bleak Bildungsroman about identity, belonging and family. Original, poetic and deeply moving.

[Mary Adeson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Owusu’s writing is honest and emotive. There were instances where I had to pause from reading as I was overwhelmed by K’s sadness, I felt his scars.

[Matthew Holley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn’t really catch all of the context of what was going on here, but I appreciate the difficult themes and the poetic language.

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may be a short book, with a small word count, but it demands great concentration from the reader if you want to derive a full understanding of the sentiments expressed. Its not for the occasional reader, and it doesn’t work best last thing at night when sleep calls.

Some readers have chosen to slide over the specific detail and concentrate instead on a cadence and rhythm, and take away a more general (and generally pleasing) feel from the prose. Given the subject matter that wasn’t something that came naturally to me.

The prose is delivered in chunky bites, and numerous individual sentences ask the reader to stop and contemplate underlying meanings. While in general I like writing that is cryptic and subtle, I don’t have the gift needed to tune into poetry, and so I found this a chore at times.
It’s a tease; am I getting the right message? Unless the author chooses to reveal and explain (in an interview for example) there’s much that is vague and this is where personalised interpretation is required

Awareness is the first of five sections. I remain unsure whether the narrator, K, was generally happy, or not, whether his foster parents were nurturing or distant.

Reflection charts the child reunited with his family and his introduction to Ghanaian and black role models. An upbringing with tough discipline, but not, so far as I could make out, one that was wholly different from many children, of all backgrounds with “old fashioned“(i.e. strict) parents

Change Adolescence and sexual awakening. The uncertainty of youth cushioned by a softness that comes from having a much younger sibling. London riots, and knife crime are a chronicle of the times.

Construction and Acceptance The book lurches into self harm, alcohol and drugs. In some ways these are the most straightforward sections to read (easiest to follow), but I remain uncertain what led to and caused this breakdown.

Authorial erudition is in evidence throughout. Some examples where Owusu demonstrates his layers of learning include “Mike into D’Amato” (47); Doppler effect (57); Orwell, Owen or Olson (59); Ozymandias (79)

Ghanaian family roots and references shape the book. Anansi is addressed at the start of each section and Twi phrases are incorporated in the texts.

Overall this is a book that I respect, and which would yield all sorts of new perspectives and insights if the opportunity arose to discuss it in a university style lecture environment. As a book to read for pleasure it’s not top of my list, and it’s one that I could only gift to the most committed and seasoned reader.

[Katie.dorny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel in verse about the life of a young boy and a touch life beginning in childhood coupled with the realities he faces in that environment. The audio of this was breathtaking.

This is a hard hitting book that doesn’t shy away from tough topics. Trigger warnings are in the synopsis on good reads!!!!

I don’t want to ruin the plot of this book by discussing it because it’s so short any outlining would be a spoiler. So just hold tight and dive in. It’ll shake you up.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books)]

A dozen pages in, put off, I put it down. The language was estranging and uninteresting.

[John Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Derek Owusu is so obviously a poet. These short bursts of poetic prose are stitched together to form K’s life story, the central character here. In care, before he was a year old, fostered in the countryside which he loved and then released to the city of cement and tower blocks and to his parents, little more than strangers - and to urban poverty.

This is no cheery read. Mentally scarred at an early age, we watch the scarring develop through the writer’s keen eye and sensitive pen. It’s hard not to read this as autobiographical on the part of Owusu, particularly as he was brought up in East Anglia before being returned to his natural parents in north London. Like K, too, he is of Ghanaian heritage.

Only a poet, perhaps - and one so aware of the torments of mental illness - could write so convincingly and almost beautifully, of its miseries.

[Bookish Bethany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lyrical prose poems stitched into a narrative of loss, depression, finding home, losing home and overcoming - important and pressing themes of identity and race. I often found the stream-of-consciousness, disordered style frustrating - it was like I was taking a class in creative writing and listening to someone read out their first piece in a workshop. It has real promise, excellent handling of subject matter, something missing / not my taste (?). Perhaps 3 stars is too harsh for something trailblazing.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

such beautiful vignettes, but so full of guilt and anguish. so many layers of sorrow sewn into these small little pockets, in awe truly. wow this ending/back half is gonna sit w me for a while… so raw, so blunt

“suddenly, it wasn’t just my suffering confined to my pad; i wrote celie out of her story and added her to mine, with the last drops of my ink gave us both a father neither of us has.”

[Lavinia · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5)

[Diane Law · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of memories.
Honest and moving.

A different style of book and a quick read that gets you thinking.